


Dream Come True

by Foxberry



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dreams, First Meetings, M/M, Prophetic Dreams, Soulmates, Soulmates AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:18:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxberry/pseuds/Foxberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmates could be anyone, of any gender, of any age. What kind of soulmate or soulmates you had was never easy to tell. Dreams were funny that way, warping and changing and revealing so much of oneself and so little all at once. </p><p>Where Jean had dreamt of his soulmate late in life and found them frightening, Marco had known of his soulmate from childhood and wanted to meet them more than anything else. </p><p>Both of them would find out in the most abrupt of ways that their dreams can come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Come True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jellyfishfrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfrost/gifts).



> Based on a headcanon jam with the lovely [Bell](https://twitter.com/jeanmarco__) on Twitter. I loved the idea of dreaming about your soulmate and everything Bell came up with so I had to write it.

Jean Kirschtein had never believed the whole hype around soulmate dreams. He was supposed to dream about his soulmate again and again until he’d meet them and every other part of that moment would be revealed. It was meant to be this big event that people looked forward to because they knew what their soulmate would say or do or sound or look like. Jean, however, simply felt bitter and frustrated, because Jean didn’t dream until his late teens.

Even when his dreams started, they were dark, barely more than a sliver of colour in the black depths that filled his mind when he slept. They left him bitter, convinced that he would spend the rest of his life alone because his dreams never repeated and none of the details that others spoke of showed in his sleep. All he saw was black.

He told himself that he could be happy on his own, that his lack of soulmate dreams were a sign of that, that he wasn’t meant to have a soulmate. Regardless of how hard he tried to convince himself, to love himself, and be all that he needed, he withdrew into himself with the certain knowledge that he didn’t have a soulmate. The darkness in his dreams shrouded his future.

The echo of laughter woke him one night. A chuckle or maybe a giggle or simply a snicker broke through his dream and somehow he knew. It repeated again the next night, laughter that seemed nervous and happy and surprised and uncertain all at once melded together in the blind expanse of Jean’s dreams. Suddenly appearing out of nowhere, its sound scared him, shaking him awake to the touch of damp sheets.

Soulmates could be anyone, of any gender, of any age. What kind of soulmate or soulmates you had was never easy to tell. Dreams were funny that way, warping and changing and revealing so much of oneself and so little all at once. They told of things that could be or were or hopes that might never come true. Yet soulmate dreams were always that same first glance, first meeting, first words. All of them were the aspects they were meant to remember and meant to look for. Jean’s was someone laughing at him.

For weeks it sat uncomfortably with him. Laughter could mean anything and after silence for so long, he could only conclude it was a child and he would mean something to someone but it would never be the love everyone talked about. Soulmates were more than the romantic ideals people discussed. They were close friends, penpals, mentors, and apprentices. A soulmate was someone you'd be a close friend with, that you might spend part of your life with. This was probably what life had in store for him.

Over the years his own messages of hope to others online gained him popularity. Apparently the lies he publicly told himself and so desperately wanted to believe about not caring about a soulmate resonated with so many others. It felt odd to build his reputation on providing hope for the thousands of others who hadn't had their soulmate dream and may never have one when he had had one of his own. Yet he pushed it away, pretending he hadn't heard that laughter, and that he hadn't heard his soulmates daunting first words, "But it can't be you."

* * *

  
Marco Bodt believed in soulmate dreams in a way that others called hopeless. He had dreamt of his soulmate for as long as he could remember, before he even knew what soulmate dreams were. He had thought for so long that he'd had an imaginary friend and their smile made the breeze rushing past sweet and cool and gentle. He'd spent just as long as he could remember them trying to be everything his soulmate might want him to be, if only to make them as happy as they did in his dreams.

Growing up, his dreams had always been vivid and bright, preserving the best of what life had to offer in glimpses of shimmering colours and sounds that turned heartbeats into songs. He could hear the way water flowed in rivers and see the crisp detail of everyone's face, and yet his soulmate dream was different. Over the years it grew more and more clear, developing from the blurred mix of paint it had once seemed to be. It was a constant source of frustration that his vivid dreaming didn't pass into the one he considered his favourite.

Marco hoped this soulmate was all that he had been hoping for. He wanted the romance and the surprise and the promise of a moment he had seen over and over. It felt so silly to be attached to such an ideal that he began to wonder if he wasn't simply dreaming of too much, dreaming of things in his conscious state that would never come to be.

Hoping and forever dreaming as his friends would always tell him, Marco searched for others like him, others that shared his enthusiasm and his fears and his excitement for what the future might hold. He read up on the stories of others and the words of people who gave others hope when they needed it most.

Despite everything Marco believed in, despite how certain he was that he would meet his soulmate, he could not fight the crippling self-doubt that he was only fooling himself. People had a nervous jitter at the idea of meeting their soulmate, while Marco wanted to find them, get to know them, finally put a name to the blur of a face he knew so well. It had been years for him by now. He didn't understand why it was taking so long to run into someone he was always meant to meet.

While Marco wasn't one to pray, he hoped and wished and dreamed of hearing the words that had echoed over and over in his mind for as long as he could remember, "Jesus Christ, you're beautiful." They were perhaps the nicest first words that he had ever heard and the very fact they were for him made his stomach flutter with anticipation for the very moment he would hear them. It would quite literally be a dream come true.

* * *

When the convention season came around and Jean found himself invited to a slew of panels, he thought nothing of it. It was just another run of the mill meet and greet where he would meet fans of his opinion on soulmates and his words of encouragement. It gave him a mild sense of satisfaction that the lonely bitterness he felt and tried so desperately to hide was somehow useful and even encouraging to others. The con was another reminder of that.

The hours, however, were long and he found a hotel full of people excited about their soulmates more overwhelming than he expected. Each one that recognised his face beamed at him like he held every answer for their future happiness. Over time it became an onslaught to his senses and to keep himself sane, he locked himself away in his room when he wasn't needed. Sleep was his only refuge.

The naps he took between panels were fitful. He woke up tangled in his sheets, having wormed halfway across the bed in his sleep. The cold feel of the freshly made bed almost felt like the sweat he used to feel when his soulmate's laugh startled him. Somehow that feeling on his skin provided the comfort of knowing he was awake and the bitter disappointment that once again he had not yet lived out that moment.

His dream sounded clearer the more that he slept. The laughter seemed to sing, breathy notes clinging to its sound like it wasn't meant to be heard. The outlines of colour he could just make out gave him no more detail in the limited visuals of his brain and yet overall the dream seemed more real. He could feel the stinging embarrassment of hearing those words, the surge of shame through his body, and the unmistakable feeling of a hot, searing flush running down his neck.

Further details of his dream drove him away from sleep and into the crowds. He hoped he would forget it all and lose himself to the mass prayer that they were all meant to find someone of their dreams. It only seemed to remind Jean of how much of a sham he was. He didn't believe in any of it.

* * *

Marco rushed through the corridors of the convention centre building, hoping he hadn't lost any time and hadn't missed that one panel he had intended on seeing. He'd been attending panel after panel after panel with the hope that he'd find an answer and know for sure whether he was putting way too much hope on this one thing that might eventually disappoint him.

Filling his body with as much caffeine as he could, Marco chugged down a freshly made cup of coffee. It was expensive as all convention food was but he didn't care if he meant that he could be awake. There was so much he couldn't miss and there was a sneaking suspicion in the back of his mind that he had seen this corridor before.

The squiggly lines in the carpet crisscrossed over one another, a mixture of greens and blues over a sea of boring beige. Beneath his feet they swam through the convention centre, bumping into walls and cutting corners, leading him towards his destination with no more direction than he was capable of.

Marco was making up for lost time as he ran through the centre but lost it all when he suddenly collided with a slim man with an undercut. His coffee did not survive the collision, slipping out of his cup and splashing all over the man's chest. The stranger flinched, choking out an exclamation of pain, before shaking it all off like it was nothing.

When Marco realised who he'd just bumped into, his eyes opened wider than he could ever remember them opening and began to sting. Jean Kirschtein, one of the guests of the convention and all around self acceptance writer, looked just as stunned as Marco felt. His fingers ran across his chest, touching over the fresh trail of hot coffee running down his neck and staining his shirt.

There passed a moment where their eyes met, no words exchanging between them. Jean motioned to shake his head and say it was fine, but he stopped. His lips parted, his eyes blinked slowly, and for the briefest of moments Marco thought he knew for sure who this man was. But before could be entirely sure of what he suspected might be true, he heard the words he had been waiting to hear all his life. "Jesus Christ, you're beautiful."

* * *

Chest completely scalded and now turning cold, Jean exclaimed the first thing he thought of after the freckled man bumped into him. It was by far the strangest thing Jean had ever said aloud, even with pages of self acceptance essays that could make his stomach churn for weeks. Somehow the words just slipped off his tongue into the air, but he didn't regret them for a second. He would never take them back either. Despite how carelessly this man had run into him, his sheer presence made up for it in seconds.

The stranger’s eyes stayed wide, completely bewildered by his statement. Jean suspected he wasn't the only one taken aback by his sudden remark. It wasn't something that people normally said after being burned by hot coffee. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure he could be angry about the incident at all.

The man before him let a long exhale and promptly breathed the air back into his lungs to hyperventilate. He'd probably come to the convention like all the others and now he'd run into someone he recognised. Jean waited patiently for an autograph request or a question about whether he'd find his soulmate. Everyone always seemed to want to ask him those questions whenever they got him alone.

Instead breathy nervous laugh erupted from him, tinted by disbelief. It hit Jean in the chest harder than this man had when he’d run into him. Jean would know that laugh anywhere. It had haunted him for so long and now that he could hear it for himself, coming from the soft lips of a man he found handsome, he couldn't believe he wasn't dreaming.

"But it can't be you," said the man with a crooked smile. Not a single ounce of him was menacing. Jean couldn't even be sure that he was even capable of it by the look in his eyes alone. The words he had heard and been hurt by so long ago struck him again. Though this time they hit in a way that Jean never wanted to forget.

"I..." Jean began, not knowing how these things were supposed to work despite being an invited guest at a conference for giving advice on such matters. "You're... real?" His heart hammered in his chest as if trying to reach out on its own for the man he had dreamed of. "I don't even know how this works."

The man laughed and shrugged with one of the cutest, most sheepish grins Jean might have ever seen. "Well, I'm Marco, and I... I know who you are." His hand slapped across his mouth. "Oh my god. How is it you?" His fingers pressed into his face. He seemed to be trying to wake himself up. Jean didn't blame him for wanting to know if he was awake or not.

Jean froze in place and stared straight back at Marco. "So... uh... Marco, um... would it be too forward if I asked you out to dinner?" He gulped and scratched at his arm. This was how these things were supposed to go, surely. You meet the person you've been dreaming about who has also been dreaming about you and you find someway to understand whatever this all means.

"Why don't we just go now?" Marco asked quietly. An excited jitter ran through his body. With his soft brown eyes and pleasant smile, Marco looked like he was begging Jean to say yes. Regardless of what Jean had to do for the rest of the day, that's exactly what he wanted to say back. It wasn't everyday that you find yourself believing the positive, optimistic drivel that people spout out to make other people happy.

Jean slurred out an answer as quick as he could manage, "Now? Right, yeah, sure. Let's do that." With no idea of where he was going or who this man was or what they were going to talk about, Jean couldn't let this opportunity pass him by. After years of dark dreams with slivers of colour, he'd finally found how truly beautiful his dream looked in colour, and this was one dream he didn't want to wake up from.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this and want to share it on Tumblr, you can find the Tumblr post [here](https://foxberryblue.tumblr.com/post/147775972877/dream-come-true).
> 
> I would love to hear your feedback here or you can also find me on [Tumblr](https://foxberryblue.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/foxberryblue) or on my writing only blog [Foxberry Writes](http://foxberrywrites.tumblr.com/).


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